The Cal-look Lounge

Remember the song "I want muscle" by Diana Ross. Try to get hold of that and a couple of old Hot VW's. Popular Hotrodding and Hot Rod Magazine from the 70's and 80's and you will be in the right mood for this reading!!

Back in the day all citys had there street racing heros. Like owning and driving GM Big Blocks or Hemi Mopars were the norm over here in Sweden as alot of these muscle cars were imported during the early 70's. Stockholm was the major city if street racing and after a few years of American Muscle owning the street this little silver colored beetle out of no where pops up and wins 26 out of 27 (a missed shifting) the first season out. The whole community was in chock. This beetle was actually purpose built for the nobel art of street racing. A 56 body on a 70 pan, 356 gearbox from a Porsche and a Corvair engine witha turbo made it fast. This was acutally a gasser aimed for street with everything lightend up and it made a lot of HP. It was fast. I asked a few of the real hard core street race guys about it's performance and they claimed "12 zero" and "not that fast, but enough".....So if not if had been they would have won the race. Car exist today nad is slowly being restored. It was never raced on a regular strip with timing and by 1982 it was sold and forgotten for years.

A friend of mine a I built a big engine (type 4) topped with N2O and put it all in a car with fibre glass and lexan.......A true purpous  built street racer. We got it in to the high elvens and we did our share of street racing. Allways hunting for american muscle we also got some trophys. Best part was racing the 1000+ cc motorcycles of the day. Anyway. Was there anyone else remember doing this "I want muscle" hunting back in the day?  8)

Happiness is a Hot VW!!
 

That's a cool story!  :) As I was born in '75, the muscle car era had been long gone when I grew up. But nowadays when I arrive at a stoplight and a fast 'n curious honda stopps next to my bug, I think it's the same kind of feeling that urges me to rev up my engine and (to try) to beat the crap out of the jap.

Here is a bit of story from back in the day when street racing with V8's was big. I got hold of this guy that had a hard trashed motor cycle that looked like a race bike that had a real hard life. I asked for a race, you know: "come on it's just an old V-dub and you have a racy motorcycle...I only want to see how fare behind I will be"....So we set the date and me and my friends was sitting in a burger bar when suddenly a whole buch of racecars and motorcycles ends up on the parking lot. I imagined one guy showing up and it turned out to be 10 bikes and 10-12 cars!! So we got to the deserted unoffical race track where there normaly is industrial activities during daytime. Anyway. I made my mind up that it was 3 races and then home.....not wanting to get caught in a street race situation....so I hade the game plan done. I got there and saw the top gun car take of (Camaro with 468", TH400 and narrowed rearend with 15*33*15 slicks) and brake the gearbox. Some funny gys were pointing finger at the silly little V-dub of mine stating "I drove to the wrong place". So I got my things togheter and walked up and asked the driver of the, then fastest car (the fastets one broke) if he wanted to race me. He had this 68 Camaro with a LS7 454 and a shot of 250 hp N2O and the car was tubbed too! "Sure he said". Got in to his car, made an enormous burn-out and backed back. At that moment I let my chlutch up and passed his side window, just tip toeing my front tires making a hard dry burn-out, braked hard and back up. Starter walks up and drops he's arms and I get a heads up start.....he slips all over the road and don't catch up!! So I beat the fastest guy!! No more racing for me that night!! I got 2 more runs I thought so I asked the motorcycle guys "who is the fastest of you?"......They point at a Suzuki Katana. I did my starting procedure and when the arm drops he wheelies hard and has to back off.....so I got the win once again!!! I have one race left and get greedy and gives the motor cycle guy one more chance and he beats me of the line and I can't catch him. Those were the days and no one remebers the race (they claim) these days.....I meen who thought a small V-dub could beat a big American Muscle car!!! Happiness is a Hot VW!!

PS
I was at a leagal race this summer and the driver of the Katana shows up....He look at my car and ask if I remember him....I shake my head and he say that HE remember me as we had a race, he had this Katana and he remeberd it very well :).........."aaaaah" I said"....I did not recognice you with the helmet off". We a good chat and left smiling both off us!! 

2 Lane Black Top.....the movie and American Grafitt sort of made a lot of impact on me. I lived in a country far far away from SoCal but I think life on the street was from time to time equally intense. The hot spot in a town was the town center parking lot or a hamburger bar. So intese nights, there were cruising all night long. What I really liked at that time was street racing. As long as you had the right contacts and was a the right spot you could see fast cars messuring up. A lot of cars just had loud pipes and smoke comming out of the pipes but the sound of real high performance rumbling or screaming makes the ear wake up and adrenaline to pump.
During the early 90's I went to university for studies and lived in a bigger town. So my friend who lived out in "the not so developed part of the county" he went to visit me. he had his car set up with a bigger engine topped by a set of IDA:s. Anyway he comes to town and we were supposed to go from the garage to my appartment and that ment a lot of traffic lights. Not everyone is keen on standing by the lights waiting but my friend he drove slowly to the light....purposly waitning for a red light to show of and he in front of everyone. By the time it went green he had the revs up and side stepped the clutch and banged thrue 1:st and 2:nd and the put 3:d in and slowed down for the next light, waiting for it to turn red so he could lauch the car once more.............That gives a new meaning to the name "The red light district".........wait for red...rev it up and bang thrue the gears!!! Happiness is a Hot VW!!